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Author 




Imprint. 



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A 



Red Rose 



FROM THE 



Olden Time. 



175^ 




PHILADELPHIA: 
KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, 607 SANSOM STREET. 

1872. 









A Red Rose from the Olden Time \ 




A Ramble Through The Annals 

OF THE 

ROSE INN, 

ON THE BARONY OF NAZARETH, 

IN THE DAYS OF THE PROVINCE: 



BASED ON 



''Tll)t Old 3nm at J^azaretf)/' 

A PAPER, 

READ AT THE CENTENARY OF THE "NAZARETH INN," 
JUNE 9th, 1871, 



By iMAURICE C. JONES, 

OF BETHLEHEM, PHNNA. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, 607 SANSOM STREET. 

1872. 



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" JlelCaSetl antJ ^Onfi'rmetl unto the said Letitia Aubrey her 
Heirs and Assigns for evermore,— but tO tJ0 IlOltJeU of John Penn 
Thomas Penn and Richard Penn their Heirs and Assigns in free 
and common Soccage as of the Seigniory of Windsor on gfcltjfttfl 
anti paStUfi therefor to the said John Penn Thomas Penn and 
Richard Penn their Heirs and Assigns ^^^lE HE!! 2li<!^S1E 
on the twenty-fourth Day of June yearly if the same shall be de- 
manded in full for all Services Customs and Rents." 

Deed 25 Sept. 1731. 

, JOHN PENN et al. to 

MRS. LETITIA AUBREY 
Release in Fee of 5,000 Acres of Land in Pennsilvania. 



1752 — iSyi. 



The Old Nazareth Inns. 



Committee of Arrangements. 

JUNE 9th, I 871. 



CHAIRMAN, 

THOMAS SPARKS. 

SECRETARY, 

PHILIP A. CREGAR. 



JAMES HENRY, 
Capt. WILLIAM MAN, 
EDWARD O. SMITH, 
GEORGE A. KOHLER, 



WILLIAM. H. JORDAN, 
JOHN THOMAS, 
RICHARD M, SHOEMAKER, 
FRANK HOWELL ELLI5. • 



N the occasion of a dinner at the Nazareth Inn on the 9th of June 
last, — commemorative of the centennial anniversary of that no- 
table house of entertainment, — Maurice C. Jones, of Bethlehem, 
read a brief but highly interesting paper on its history, and on the 
history of its predecessor, "The Rose." The essay met with the un- 
qualified approbation of the company, and the wish being simultane- 
ously expressed that it might be published at an early day, the editor 
was requested to extend Dr. Jones' researches, so as to be enabled to 
perfect, as nearly as possible the picture, whose forms in outline had 
been so happily conceived. 

Such is, in brief, the origin of "A Red Rose from the Olden Time;" 
for whose historical element the reader is largely indebted to the vener- 
able antiquary, Mr. Andrew G. Kern of Nazareth, and to James Heniy, 
of Bolton on Lehietan, President of the Moravian Historical Society. 

THE EDITOR. 

Bethlehem, 4th Jan. of 1872. 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time, 



^752 




HAT charming tract of rolling country, 
rich in springs and water-courses, rich 
in meadows arid rich in wheat-growing 
lands, which lies in the very heart of 
Northampton County, being embraced 
within the limits of Upper Nazareth 
township, was purchased by the Mora- 
vians in the summer of 1741. Its contents, we 
are told, were five thousand acres, every acre being 
measured and computed according to the dimensions 
of acres, mentioned and approved in and by the 
statute made in the thirty-third year of the reign of 
King Edward the First. After the founding of 
Bethlehem, the Moravians made successive improve- 
ments on this tract, — at Ephrata in 1743, at Old 



a A Red Rose from tlie Olcleii Time. 

Nazareth in 1744, at Gnadenthal in 1745, at Chris- 
tian's Spring in 1748, and at Friedensthal in 1749; 
and here they lived, somewhat after the manner of 
the primitive Christians, in an Economy. Thus 
happy years and halcyon days rolled on, when, in 
175 1, there came orders from the head-men of the 
Church in the old country, for the laying out of a 
village on some eligible spot within the limits of 
this princely domain, like unto the Moravian villa- 
ges in Germany. Bishop Spangenberg, accordingly, se- 
lected and had surveyed into a town-plot a parcel of 
one hundred and sixty acres, adjacent to the north- 
eastern boundary of the modern borough of Naza- 
reth. This survey was commenced on the third day 
of January, 1752 ; preparations were, at the same time, 
set on foot for the erection of needed dwellings on 
the opening of spring, and the name of Gnadenstadt 
was given to the projected town. But the inhabi- 
tants of Nazareth, whom it was proposed transferring 
thither, could not be prevailed upon to exchange the 
poetry of an Economy for the prose of town-life 
and the restrictions of a municipium. Hence the 
building of Gnadenstadt was indefinitely postponed 
and abandoned, save that a frame-building of two 
stories, which had assumed dimensions (its founda- 
tion-stone having been laid on the 27th of March), 
while the people of Nazareth were demurring in the 
face of the head-men and the Bishop, was, some time 



A Eecl Rose from the Olden Time. 



after their final decision, fully completed.* This 
building was the first house of entertainment on the 
tract, or on " the Barony," as it was called, — in as 
far as when William Penn, of Worminghurst, in the 
County of Sussex, Esq., released and confirmed its 
five thousand acres to his trusty friend Sir John 
Fagg, for the sole use and behoof of his beloved 
daughter Letitia — ^he confirmed them to him with the 
privilege of erecting them into one manor, and with 
the additional privilege of holding thereon court 
baron and views of frank pledge for the conservation 
of the peace ; — and being, as has been stated, the 
first house of entertainment erected at Nazareth, and 
the legitimate predecessor of the house in which we 

* It should have been stated, that in addition to this " house of enter- 
tainment erected for strangers and for the conveniency of the workmen," 
there was another dwelling finished in the spring of 1752. This stood 
vacant until in May of 1760, when it was occupied by John George 
and Mary C. Claus. In the autumn of 1761, Gottlieb Demuth (see 
later in this paper) took up a lot and blocked up a house. In this way the 
building of Gnadenstadt was gradually resumed, and the place grew; but 
in June of 1762, it received the name of Schoeneck i. e., "Pretty Cor- 
ner," and in October of the same year, divine worship (for which the in- 
habitants had met in Claus's house up to that time) was first held in the 
new school and parsonage. The stone church in the hamlet of Schoen- 
eck, embowered so charmingly in weeping willows to the very pinnacle of 
its antique belfry, was completed in 1793, and dedicated on the 20th day 
of October of that year. 

John George Claus, the first inhabitant of Schceneck, was born in 
Alsace in 1722. He deceased in February of 1763, and his remains 
were the first that were buried In the graveyard at Schoeneck. 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 



are met, it behooves us not to pass it by liglitly, 
but to ponder what of its history has been rescued 
from oblivion by antiquarian research. 

It was in the late summer of 1752, that the 
ancient caravansary was completed, and, on the 15th 
day of September, it was occupied by John Frederic 
Schaub, cooper, and Divert Mary, his faithful wife, — 
he, the first of a blameless line of publicans.* 
Standing on the very confines of barbarism, like a 
beacon off some dark and stormy coast, its cheering 
presence was henceforth hailed by horsemen and 
packers journeying on the King's road, that led past, 
and over the mountain many miles northward, to the 
farms and settlements that dotted both shores of 
the Delaware in the Minisinks. For almost twenty 
years its doors stood invitingly open to weary trav- 
ellers, who longed for surcease from the toils of the 



* Mr. Schaub was born in Switzerland in 17 17. He and his wife were 
one of thirty-three Moravian couples, that were brought over from 
Europe, late in the Autumn of 1743, and settled at Nazareth. About 1747 
he made a venture in real estate, taking up two parcels of woodland on 
the Lehigh Mountain, near Bethlehem, which were patented to him by 
the three Penns, in October of 1752. These he conveyed to John 
Okely in December following, and thus they became part of the great 
Moravian tract surrounding Bethlehem, which tract eventually embraced 
upwards of 10,000 acres. In 1755, Mr. Schaub removed to Bethabara, 
the first settlement made by the Moravians on their possessions in what 
was then Anson County, North Carolina. He deceased at Bethany, a 
neighboring settlement, in 1801. 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 9 

way, and for the rest and refreshment of an inn ; 
and for almost twenty years, its hospitable roof 
sheltered the Brethren, too, who came to visit their 
Brethren at Nazareth. 

In this way Der neue Gasthof., as it was modestly 
called, grew in favor with the race of articulate men ; 
and its achievements having been duly blazoned at 
the lists far and near, the inn was entitled to wear a 
coat-of-arms, upon which there appeared on the 6th 
day of August, 1754, during the incumbency of John 
F. Schaub, cooper, and Divert Mary, his wife, a full- 
blown scarlet rose. And hence, and ever afterwards 
it was known as De?- Gasihof xur Rose^ — Die Rose, — 
THE ROSE. The origin of this floral emblem 
and this floral appellation is fortunately a matter of 
history. They were not bestowed on the lonely hos- 
pice because its presence made the surrounding wil- 
derness of scrub-oak and stunted pines to blossom 
like the queen of flowers ; nor because its surcoat 
was dyed in Spanish brown. They were both com- 
memorative ; for when John Penn, Thomas Penn, 
and Richard Penn, released to Letitia Aubrey, their 
half-sister, gentlewoman, the five thousand acres that 
had been confirmed to his trusty friend Sir John 
Fagg, for her sole use and behoof by William Penn 
of Worminghurst, in the County of Sussex, Esq., it 
was done on the condition of the payment of ONE 
RED ROSE, vearlv, for all services, customs and rents. 



10 A Reel Hose from the Olden Time. 

Soon after this important event in the annals of 
the inn, a cloud began to gather along the northern 
horizon of the Province, which, ere the lapse of a 
twelvemonth, burst in fire and blood. The French 
and Indians had taken the war-path, and were come 
down upon the defenceless frontiers. Schaub and 
Divert Mary, his wife, and their son Johnny (the 
first child of white parents born at Nazareth), had 
retired from The Rose (August 14th, 1754) ; John 
Nicholas Weinland, farmer and musician, had admin- 
istered its concerns from that date to the nth day 
of December following, — and so it came to pass that 
the fury of this Indian war fell during the incum- 
bency of Albrecht Klotz, last from Tulpehocken, but 
a native of Hohenlohe in the Lower Palatinate^ 
blacksmith, and Ann Margaret, nee Rieth, born in 
Scoharie, a daughter of old Michael Rieth, of Tulpe- 
hocken, his faithful wife. The following curious 
document dated at Philadelphia on the 2d of August, 
1755, attests that Mr. Klotz assumed the responsi- 
bilities of his new trust with the full approbation 
and sanction of the highest Provincial authority for 
the time being, — it having been issued by the 
Honorable Robert Hunter Morris, Esq., Lieutenant 
Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania and the 
Counties of New Castle, Kent and Sussex on Dela- 
ware. It reads thus : 



A Red Rose from the Olden Tiine. 11 

" Whereas Albrecht Klotz hath been recommended unto me as 
*' a sober and fit person to keep a house of entertainment, and 
" being requested to grant him a license for the same, I do hereby 
"license and allow the said Albrecht Klotz to keep a public 
"house in the township of Lehigh* in the County of North- 
" ampton, for the selling of wine, rum, punch and other spirituous 
"liquors, until the loth day of August next; Provided,, he shall 
" not, at any time in the said term, suffer any drunkenness, unlawful 
" gaming, or any other disorders, or sell any drink to the Indians 
"to debauch or hurt them; but in all things observe and practice 
"all laws and ordinances of this Government to his said employ- 
" ment relating. 

"Given under my hand and seal-at-arms, the 2d day of August, 
" in the Twenty-ninth year of our Sovereign Lord and King 
" George the Second, and in the year of our Lord One Thousand 
" seven hundred and fifty-five. 

[L. s.] Signed ROBERT H. MORRIS." 



It must here be added, that Christian and Anna 
Stotz had, in April of 1755, been associated with the 
Klotzes at The Rose, to preside over its bureau of 
agriculture, and that Joseph, a negro from the Gold 



* Lehigh township was organized by the Court in September of 1754, 
and was defined as extending from the Lehigh River on the west, east- 
wards along the foot of the Blue Mountain, to the " old Minisink 
Road." At the same time, its adjacents from said road as far the line 
of Mount Bethel, received tlie name of Plalnfield. Plainfield township 
was organized in 1757. The Rose-farm, in part, at the date of the 
above license lay in Lehigh, subsequently in Plainfield, and at a later day 
in Bushkill. 

3 



12 A Bed Rose from the Olden Time. 

Coast, was hostler at the critical juncture to which 
the current of this history has drifted. 

On the I St of November, 1755, sixty thousand 
persons perished violently in the city of Lisbon, as 
it was being shaken to its foundations by the un- 
stable earth that reeled like a drunkard in his cups ; 
and in the early morning of the i8th of November 
of the same year, there was heard on the Barony, 
with a star-lit sky overhead, a sound as of a rushing 
wind and of the booming of distant siege guns, — 
when lo ! the doors at The Rose swung on their 
hinges, and stood open ! Thus it is written in the 
book of our chronicles — and on its dusty pages it 
furthermore stands recorded, that the sleepers at the 
inn, on that frosty November morning, rocked in 
their beds as do mariners in hammocks out at sea. 
It would be presumptuous for the historian to en- 
deavor to determine what was the connection between 
these far distant occurrences, — so nearly synchronous 
and so like in character, although, fortunately for the 
inmates of The Rose, unlike in degree and in 
effects. 

Leaving men of science to conjecture or decide as 
they please, we will proceed to state, that seven days 
after these ominous forebodings, word was brought 
to Nazareth of the surprise and massacre on the 
Mahoning, — and on the evening of that seventh day, 
upwards of sixty terrified men, women and children 



A Bed Rose from the Olden Time. 13 

from the adjacents north of the Barony thronged 
the doorway of the Moravian inn, clamorous for 
shelter and for protection from the murdering 
Indians. Among these fugitives were the Clevels* 
from the banks of the romantic Bushkill, and the 
Stechers (whose seedling apple is in high esteem to 
the present day), the Germantons, the Koehlers, the 
Klases and the Kostenbaders, all from the plains of 
upper Northampton, dwarf-oaked and slaty, and rich 
in pheasants and stemless cypripedia. 

Such was the beginning of that precipitate evacu- 
ation of the frontier.6, which culminated subsequent 
to the surprise at Frederic Hoeth's and the affair 
at Broadhead's ; — there being on the 17th day of 
the eventful month of December, 1755, according 
to an official enumeration, two hundred refugees 
billeted at Nazareth and Ephrata, and one hundred 
at the other settlements on the tract. It was as 
promiscuous an assemblage as had ever been 
gathered in so short a time, embracing men of di- 
verse nationalities and creeds, and women of diverse 
tongues. There were the Eisenmanns, the Geislys, 
the Hecks, the Hesses, the Heises, the Heimanns, 

* Francis and George Clevel, sons of Francois and Louise Clevel, n6e 
Frache, and grandsons of French Protestants who had fled from Dau- 
phiny to the Palatinate, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
immigrated to Pennsylvania with their widowed mother in the autumn 
of 1737. 



14 «^ Red Rose from the Olden Thne. 

the Hoeths, the Hoffmans, the Hueds, the Kunk- 
els, the Schielses, the Serfasses, the Sylvases, and the 
Wiesers, all from Contented Valley; the Culvers, 
and the Joneses from McMichael's Creek; the 
Brevvsters, the Countrymans and the Hillmans, from 
Dansbury (but last from 'Sopus), and many others, 
whose names in questionable orthography have been 
preserved for us and remotest posterity by some 
painstaking recorder of those stirring times. 

In this way, during the winter of 1755 and 1756, 
did The Rose exchange the character of an inn, for 
that of a city of refuge. But it was also for a 
time a military post, and suffered from military 
occupation. This occupation fell in the interval 
between the 26th of November, 1755, and the 20tli 
of February, 1756, and some of its incidents are 
the following : 

In the evening of the aforementioned 26th of 
November, a company of Saucon rangers, in com- 
mand of Capt. Laubach, halted at the inn, and 
bivouacked for the night. Having scoured the neigh- 
boring woods next day, on receiving intelligence of 
the enemy's presence in the gap of the mountain, 
they broke camp at dusk, and when the moon had 
risen, set out in pursuit. Meanwhile, two detach- 
ments of mounted men had arrived. These, how- 
ever, failed to recognize any necessity for their 
presence, and so, after having dined, departed. On 



A Bed Rose from the Olden Time. 15 

the 14th of December, Capt. Solomon Jennings* 
and Capt. Doll, each with a company passed The 
Rose en route for the scene of the late disaster at 
Hoeth's, under orders to search for and bury the dead. 
Five days later, on their return from this dangerous 
anabasis, they posted Lieut. Brown with eighteen men 
at the inn, for the present defence of the Moravian 
settlements ; and that very night, there were indica- 
tions of savages lying perdu within gunshot of its 
doors. Capt. Craig, at the head of a detachment 
of Ulster Scots from their seats on the Calisuck, 
arrived on the 21st, in order to assure himself of 
the safety of his Moravian neighbors, who, it was 
rumored, had been cut off by the enemy. Next fol- 
lowed Capts. Trump's and Aston's companies of 
Provincials from the seat of justice in a remote 
corner of the county, nearest the Jerseys, — -their desti- 

* The same Solomon Jennings, who, at .sunrise on the 19th of Sep- 
tember 1737, had set out with Edward Marshall and James Yeates 
from John Chapman's corner at Wrightstown, to walk for a wager, 
and to walk off land for the Penns 5 but who, on arriving at a point 
two miles north from the Tohickon, about eleven o'clock of that 
memorable morning, desisted from the contest. Falling back into the 
curious crowd that followed in the wake of the three walkers, Jennings 
parted company at the Fords of Lehigh, striking into the path that 
led to his farm lying two miles higher up on the south bank of the 
river. He deceased on the 17th of February, 1757, and his grave is 
pointed out to this day near the site of the old homestead, on land 
that in 1736 had been included in the Proprietaries' Manor of Fermor, 
or The Drylands. 



16 A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 

nation being Smithfield, and their errand the erection 
of a block-house. This was on the 26th of De- 
cember, and the last movement of the military past 
The Rose in 1755. 

But in 1756, the halls of the hostelry again 
echoed the tramp of martial feet, during the occupa- 
tion of the Nazareth tract by Capt. Isaac Wayne 
of Franklin's command, between the 5th and the 
15th days of January. "You are upon your return 
from Depui's," writes the sage to his Captain, " to 
halt with your company at Nazareth, and there to 
remain till further orders, taking care all the while 
to keep your men in good order, and to post them 
in such a manner as most effectually to guard and 
secure that place against any attack. Furthermore, 
you are to inform the men of your company that 
they shall receive a reward from the Government 
of forty pieces of eight for every Indian they shall 
kill and scalp in any action they may have with 
them, which I hereby promise to pay upon pro- 
ducing the scalps." In the ensuing weeks, there 
was constant intercourse between Nazareth and the 
men of war in Smithfield, detachments of Trump's 
men coming down from Fort Hamilton to convoy 
supplies of bread, baked statedly in the large family 
oven on the Barony, to their hungry comrades. 
But the 17th of February, was, perhaps, the most 
memorable day in the history of the military oc- 



A Bed Rose from the Olden Time. 17 



cupation of The Rose, and in the experience of 
Albrecht Klotz, its sorely-tried landlord ; for on 
that day he was necessitated to billet sixty soldiers 
at Nazareth, who had been clamorous for bed and 
board at the already crowded inn. What was the 
occasion of this conflux of the sons of Mars has 
not yet transpired; but hereafter their calls at The 
Rose became less frequent, and gradually, though 
not uninterruptedly, its history returned into the 
peaceful channel in which it had flowed in the days 
of John F. Schaub and Divert Mary, his wife. 

On the 5th of April, 1756, Andrew Schober, (born 
in November of 17 10, near Ollmutz, in Moravia,) 
mason, and Hedwig Regina, his wife, were installed 
at The Rose, as successors to Albrecht and Margaret 
Klotz. The worthy couple had been brought over 
in the "Little Strength," Capt. Nicholas Garrison, 
commander, in November of 1743, and were among 
the first Moravians settled at Nazareth. In the 
second week of their novitiate a very destructive 
hail-storm swept over a belt of country in North- 
ampton, including the Rose-farm, — and, as the 
meteorological display set in from the north, the 
unshuttered lights in the gable, looking to that 
cardinal point of the compass, were completely 
wrecked. Hartmann and Catharine Verdries suc- 
ceeded Christian and Anna Stotz at the head of 
the bureau of agriculture on the fourth day of June, 



IS A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 

and not three months after this change, Mr. Schober 
retired from the inn. He resumed his trowel, as- 
sisted in pointing the walls of Nazareth Hall which 
he had in part erected, removed to Bethlehem, 
superintended the erection of the buckwheat mill;* 
and deceased at that place in July of 1792. Gott- 
lieb, a son, born at Bethlehem in 1756, removed 
to Bethabara, North Carolina, in his boyhood, and 
deceased at Salem, in that state, in 1838. The 
late Samuel L. Shober, of the firm of Shober & 
Bunting, of Philadelphia, was a grandson of Andrew 
Schober of The Rose. 

Thus we have come to the administration of Hart- 
mann Verdries, and Catharine his faithful wife. Of 
it we know the following: 

On the 20th of August, 1756, articles of agree- 
ment were drawn up and executed by George Klein, 
of Bethlehem, yeoman, in behalf of the Moravian 



* The buckwheat mill at Bethlehem, built in 1765 and 1766, was the 
master-piece of an ingenious millwright, Christian Christensen, by name. 
It was originally a combination of mills, there being works for grinding 
flax seed and pressing oil, for peeling barley, spelt and millet, for split- 
ting peas, for stamping and rubbing hemp, and for grinding oat meal, 
and bark for the tannery. Subsequently there was a snuff mill inserted, 
and a run of stones for buckwheat. The buckwheat flour gradually 
gained an enviable reputation for quality, whereupon " Bethlehem Buck- 
wheat Flour," was annually thrown into the market in quantities 
which far exceeded the working capacity of tlic modest mill in any 
one season. 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 19 

Society, of the one part, and Hartmann Verdries, 
last from the same place, miller, of the other part, 
in virtue of which agreement the latter assumed 
the responsibilities of landlord at The Rose, in 
tenancy under the former. Hence it was in order, 
that the license for the year ending with the 
1 8th day of June, 1758, as well as the licenses 
for all other years pending the duration of said 
covenant should have been granted to Mr. Klein. 
The above specified license read thus : 

"At a Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace held 
"at Easton, for the County of Northampton, the 21st day of 
"June, I757j upon the petition of George Klein for a license to 
"sell beer and cyder by small measure in the township of Plain- 
" field, the said Court do allow and license the said George Klein 
"to sell beer and cyder by small measure, until the 1 8th day of 
"June next ensuing, — he observing the laws and ordinances of 
*'this Province, which are and shall be made relating to retailers 
** of beer and cyder by small measure." 

From the tenor of this license, it is inferable that 
a restriction had been laid by some one and for 
some reason not yet ascertained, upon the sale at 
The Rose of beverages indicating by hydrometric 
measurement a percentage of alcohol greater than is 
ordinarily present in either beer or cider. 

Mr. Verdries, the new landlord at our inn, Is a 
personage of some celebrity in early Moravian his- 
tory. We find him superintending * The Crown,' 



20 A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 

(that stood in Saucon township, opposite Bethle- 
hem,) in November of 1747, a date which carries us 
back to almost fabulous times. There and then he 
associated with men like Anthony Gilbert, Jost Vol- 
lert, and Adam Schaus. Next he was appointed 
miller at the Friedensthal mill,* which ground its 
first grist on the 20th of August, 1750, — and sub- 
sequently at the Bethlehem mill, which went up in 
flames in a green old age in January of 1869. 

* In January of 1750, the Moravians commenced the erection of a 
grist-mill for the convenience of their people at Nazareth, on a newly 
puichased parcel of land, watered by a, branch of Lefevre's Creek (now 
the Bushkill), touching the Barony on the northeast, and adjacent to 
lands of Johannes Lefevre. It was part of a great tract of 5,000 acres 
granted by William Penn in October of 1681 to Lawrence Growdon, 
then of the parish of St. Austell, in the hundred of Powder, County 
of Cornwall. By him it was conveyed in 1707 to his grandson Law- 
rence Growdon, Jr., then of the parish of St. Merryn, in the hundred 
of Pyder, County of Cornwall. Growdon, Jr., conveyed 550 acres of 
this great tract to William Allen, of Philadelphia, merchant, in August 
of 1740, and from Allen, the above mentioned parcel of 324 acres, 
" situate on branches of Lehietan," was purchased by Henry Antes, 
for the use of the Moravians. In April of 1751, the improvement (up 
to that time called simply "the new plantation on the kill,") received 
the name of Friedensthal. It was stockaded in the summer of 1756 
with a large but slight stockade, about 400 feet one way, and 250 the 
other, with log-houses at the corners for bastions. In 1767 the Mora- 
vians let, and in 1771 they disposed of the property. On the erection 
of the present stone mill (Mann's Mill) by Mr. Jacob Eyerly in 1796, 
its predecessor was converted into a dwelling, which, it is said, was 
demolished about 1S35, its stones and timbers in part being conveyed 
to Stockertown, and there built up a second time into a mill. 



A Bed Rose from the Olden Time. 21 

Thence he was summoned to The Rose, over whose 
destinies he presided for upwards of three years. 
Some of the facts and incidents belonging to this 
eventful triennium are the following : 

Among the refugees from Smithfield, residing at 
Nazareth, was one Francis Jones, who had fled with 
the Culvers, on the nth of December, 1755. His 
daughter Polly, as is well known, united with the 
Moravians, and was thereupon admitted into the 
Single Sisters' House, at Bethlehem. Jones was an 
inmate of The Rose as late as the 17th of August, 
1756. Returning to Smithfield, he entered the 
Province service, and in January of 1758 we find 
him in Capt. Nelson's command, posted at Dietz's* 
near the Wind Gap. 

On the 31st December, 1756 there were thirteen 
souls billeted at The Rose and in a small log 



* Like many other German names occurring in colonial records, this 
one of Diet% is almost completely masked in the orthography it has 
received at English hands. It is variously written Teets, ("Ensign 
Sterling with eleven men posted at Wind Gap, Teets' house" — Deedts 
("Capt. Garraway with twenty-seven men at Deedts' house") — and 
Teads ("Lieut. Hyndshaw at Teads' block-house.") Lewis Gordon of 
Easton, who in December of 1763 was in command of an independent 
company, was ordered by the Governor to take post at Hellers, late 
'Tweets' Gap. It was therefore about 1760, that the Hellers came into 
possession of the well known tavern-stnnd in Plainfield township, south 
of the Gap, on the old Wilkesbarre turnpike, (now Stotz's) — which for 
almost a full century bore their name. 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 



house on the farm. Ten of these were refugees 
from Allemaengel, on the confines of Egypt. In 
addition to one Gottlieb Demuth's entire family, 
there were several Volcks, — among these David Volck. 
It was he who in 1760 swept chimneys on the 
Barony ; but growing inconveniently corpulent, after 
having initiated several boys into the mysteries of the 
black art, he was advised to resign in their favor. 

At seven o'clock on the morning of the 5th of 
July, 1757, the remains of Susan Wickel, maid-ser- 
vant at Mr. Verdries', were conveyed under an armed 
escort from The Rose to the old graveyard in the 
woods, for burial. 

In the next place it behooves us to advert briefly 
to two phenomena of celestial origin which were 
observed at The Rose, as well as elsewhere, in the 
summer of 1757. The one was a total eclipse of 
the moon on the 30th of July ; the other a total 
eclipse of the sun on the 14th of August follow- 
ing. Pursuant to orders from headquarters, Mr. 
Verdries took the precaution on the last mentioned 
day to house the cattle in his keeping, before the ob- 
scuration should have shrouded them, their instincts, 
and all things else in bewildering darkness. But the 
patriarch of the herd, too old to be lured into durance 
by the sprinkling of salt, continued at large, heighten- 
ing by his lamentations the terrors of the awful gloom. 

It is generally known that Owen Rice, who 



A Bed Rose from the Olden Time. 23 

had arrived on the " Catharine," Capt. Thomas 
Gladman, commander, in June of 1742, and who 
returned to England in 1754, (he deceased at 
Gomersal, wapentake of Morley, West Riding ^of 
the County of York, in 1788), set out the first 
orchard at Nazareth. This he did in April of 1745. 
Others emulating him in so important and so en- 
tirely disinterested a labor of love, the farms on 
the tract were ere long embowered in apple trees — 
and the trees thriving, cider was pressed on the 
Barony for the first time in August of 1755. In 
September of 1757 the trees hung full, — all grafted 
fruit — and there was promise of a large ingathering. 
But the apples were ripening in lawless times, and 
it soon appeared that unless some positive means 
were taken to check the depredations committed on 
these Hesperian gardens, little of the goodly yield 
would fall to the share of those to whom it rightly 
belonged. Hence the following " Caution " was dis- 
played in the tap-room at The Rose. 

" This is to notify whom it may concern, that in these uncer- 
" tain times, the watch will set their dogs on, or, if need be, 
"fire upon all persons, whether white or Indian, who shall be 
"found trespassing in the orchards at Nazareth, Friedenstlial, The 
" Rose, Gnadenthal and Christian's Spring." 

It was argued that the warning would be most 
likely to catch the eyes of offenders at The Rose; 
but to make a sure thing of it, duplicates of the 



2^ A Bed Rose from the Olden Time, 

ordinance were posted at the mill, and in the smith- 
shop at the Spring. 

There is a waif of Provincial history, which claims 
our consideration at this point of the narrative. On 
the 1 6th of September of the above mentioned year 
1*757, while one Joseph Keller (who brought his 
butter to the Bethlehem market as early as 1746, 
receipting payment for the same with a boldly drawn 
J. K.) was assisting his neighbors in plowing, three 
Indians surprised his farm-house, which stood about 
five miles north by east from Nazareth in Plain- 
field township, and carried off his wife and sons. 
Intelligence of this irruption of Ishmaelites having 
been duly brought to Bethlehem, and communicated 
to Tadeuskundt, the Delaware king, he, the king, 
despatched three of his Indians and two whites to 
Keller's, to ascertain whether any of his subjects had 
been concerned in the high-handed outrage. As their 
way led past The Rose, Justice Horsfield of Beth- 
lehem very considerately furnished the five with a 
curt letter of recommendation to its worthy host, 
as follows : 

"To Mr. Hartmann Verdries, at The Rose, near Nazareth: 

"Pray let the bearers, Jacob Volck and Levi Jung, and three 

*• Indians have such, refreshments as is needful ; but don't let them 

" have much liquor, and send me an account of what they receive 

" that I may charge it. 

HORSFIELD." 

Bethlehem, i8th September, 1757. 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 25 

Thus the Province became indebted to our inn 
to the amount of ten shillings and nine pence,— 
the voucher for said indebtedness being couched in 
these words : 



"Province of Pennsilvania, Dr: 

" To Sundries delivered at Nazareth Tavern to Jacob Volcic, 
"Lewis Jung and three Indians, who was sent by Tadeuskundt 
" to Joseph Keller's place to satisfy him of the truth of Keller's 
" wife and children being taken captive, viz. :" . 



1757- 




£. 


s. 


d. 


"Sept. 1 8. 


To victuals and drink, 
" 2" peck of oats. 


• ■ 


4 


10 

6 


" 19. 


" victuals and drink, 
" J peck of oats, 


• 


4 


II 

6 








10 


9 



HARTMANN VERDRIES." 

Altogether different in character, though forsooth 
a record of blood, is the following item of particu- 
lar history. In December of 1757 the residents of 
the. adjacents of Nazareth were duly notified, that 
such of them as desired to be bled, (it was in a 
time when venesection was in vogue) should no 
Ipnger repair to Bethlehem to Dr. Otto, nor to the 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 



room of Joseph Miller, practitioner of physic, in 
Nazareth Hall,* as had heretofore been done to the 
annoyance of the household; — but instead, should 
rendezvous at The Rose, where said Joseph Miller, 
practitioner of physic, would within certain hours 



* Nazareth Hall, designed for the residence of Count Zinzendorf, was 
brought under roof in less than five months, to wit : in the interval 
between the 3d of May and the 24th of September, 1755. As at the 
erection of the Tower of Babel, so at the building of this goodly- 
structure, the workmen spoke in diverse tongues, there being English- 
men, Welshmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Bohemians, Danes and a native 
of the Guinea Coast among the industrious company. But there was 
no discord, nor did any casualty attend the rapid construction of the 
fortress-like walls, braced with ponderous girders of heart-of-oak. 
The Indian war, however, interrupted the work in the autumn of 1755, 
so that a full year elapsed before the completion of the chapel, which 
was dedicated on the 13th November, 1756. In this chapel the Mora- 
vians at Nazareth worshipped for almost a century. 

But Count Zinzendorf failed to visit his American brethren a second 
time, and the house was accordingly converted to other uses. On the 
Z7th of November, 1756, David and Regina Heckewelder (the parents 
of John Heckewelder, missionary among the Indians), and George 
Volck and his family, refugees from Allemaengel, occupied rooms in 
the unfinished building. They were the first tenants. The apartments 
on the second floor having been completed in April of 1757, Joseph 
Miller, M. D. and Verona his wife (imported in the Irene in May of 
1749), took possession of several, and on the 30th of June, Bishop 
Spangenberg and his wife Mary, of others. Gov. Denny rode up from 
Easton on the 19th October, 175S, specially to inspect the majestic 
structure. A school for sons of Moravian parents was commenced in 
the house in June of 1759. The "Boarding School for Young Gen- 
tlemen at Nazareth Hall," dates back to the 3d of October, 1785. 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 27 



on certain days of every month, give audience in 
the "great room," to as many as desired to consult 
him professionally in the vital matter of venesec- 
. tion. 

On the 1 2th of April, 1758, the inn was in 
imminent danger of being consumed by a "bush- 
fire," which swept down from the adjacent . barrens, 
under a stiff north-wester; — and on the 28th of the 
month, we find the brothers Francis and George 
Clevel, with their families, a fourth time refugees, 
under the shelter of its protecting wings. 

Hartmann and Catharine Verdries and their infant 
daughter, Ann Rosina, were the sole occupants of 
the house on the last day of 1758. Three months 
later they closed their administration of its concerns. 
Of Mr. Verdries' subsequent history, we know noth- 
ing, save that in 1760 he was a second time miller 
at Friedensthal ; that while there his son Lewis was 
born, 17th January, 1760, and that a grandson, Peter 
Verdries, was an eminent classical teacher in .Phila- 
delphia between 181 5 and 1825. 

The sixth landlord at The Rose in the succession, 
was Ephraim Culver, late from Lower Smithfield, 
miller, — but a native of Connecticut, — having been 
born on the 30th July, 17 17, in the town of 
Lebanon, in that Government. Mr. Culver was 
installed at the inn, as near as we can ascertain, 
about the time of the vernal equinox of 1759. 



^8 .A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 

Together with his wife Elizabeth, m. n. Smith, 
whom he had married in " The Oblong," he con- 
ducted the affairs of the now historic house for 
almost six long years. Of his life antecedent to 
that epoch, it affords us much pleasure, in view 
of his importance in the annals of The Rose, 
to be able to state the following particulars. In 
1753 he left Connecticut, removed with his family 
to Smithfield, and settled upon a small glebe he 
had purchased of Daniel Broadhead. On this site, 
now in the centre of the borough of Strouds- 
burgh, he erected a grist-mill, (its wheel was 
turned by the waters of Mc Michael's Creek) and 
looked forward, no doubt, to years of peaceful 
industry — and then retirement from business and 
rest in the evening of life. But this prospect 
was rudely marred when Mr. Culver on the nth 
of December, 1755, saw a cloud of smoke ascend 
from the site of his house and mill, as he was 
fleeing with wife and children before the destroy- 
ing Indians. With others of his neighbors he 
sought a friendly asylum at Nazareth. There, ere 
long, he united with the Moravians — there he in- 
dentured his son Ephraim (who deceased at Schoen- 
eck in September of 1804) to the miller,'^ — there 
he lost his daughter Sarah in May of 1756 (she 
lies buried in the old "Indian Graveyard,") — and 
there was his home until he was tendered the posi- 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 29 

tion of landlord at " The Crown," in October of 
1756. Mr. Culver's eventful administration of the 
affairs of that ancient hostelry, fills a leaf in the 
book of Colonial history. It fell in those years in 
which Tadeuskundt and his hangers-on were con- 
stantly on the wing between Fort Allen and Easton, 
and Easton and Fort Allen — playing at " toss and 
catch" with Governor Denny and his men of state, 
or beguiling them at numberless treaties and con- 
ferences by soft words and the music of Indian 
oratory, to hope for peace, — when there was war. 
And ever and anon would these ghastly, gaunt and 
ominous birds light in a flock at The Crown, in- 
vade the sanctity of the landlord's private apart- 
ments, as well as the tap-room and the larder, and 
clamor for victuals and drink in guttural Minsi and 
harsh-sounding Nanticoke. They would come at all 
hours of the day, and even the midnight air was 
known to sound with the rushing of their wings. 
Thus the landlord was sorely tried. But he found 
his barbaric customers as full of whims also as they 
were importunate. There was no compound or de- 
coction current in that day among the whites, but 
what was called for by these thirsty Indians. Wit- 
ness the unreasonable demands of Peepy and Mon- 
tour, two runners, who, before setting out on a dis- 
tant mission in January of 1757, indulged in diverse 
pints and half-pints of wine, in quarts of cider, in 



30 A Reel Rose frovv the Olden Time. 

drams and hot drams, in mim* and in rum, — and 
departed only after having come into possession of 
"a quart of rum and ye bottle." Such was the school 
in which Mr. Culver was disciplined in the lesser 
arts of his calling ; while occasional intercourse 
with men like Conrad Weisser, Capt. Jacob Arndt, 
Hugh Crawford, and George Croghan, — and with 
Moses Tattamy, Paxanosa, and French Margaret, — 
Indian kings and queens, furnished him with a 
knowledge of the world and mankind, such as 
enabled him to conduct the affairs of The Rose 
acceptably during the six years of his incumbency. 
From its unusual length it may very naturally be 
argued, that its current flowed smoothly in a chan- 
nel unruffled by rift or riffle. This was the case, 
save in the autumn of 1763, when a second war 
with the Indians was imminent, and cismontane 
Northampton again suffered from hostile invasion. 

In April of 1763, William Edmonds, a native 
of Coleford in the parish of Newland, hundred of 
St. Briavell's, county of Gloucester, leather-dresser, 
f '■ ~—- • 

*Mim, abbreviated from mimbo — a drink prepared from rum, water 
and loaf-sugar, as appears from the following " rates in Taverns," fixed 
by the Justices of York County, Pennsylvania, in January of 1752, 
" for the protecting of travellers from the extortions of inn-holders." 
I qt. mimbo, made of West India rum and loaf, . . 10 d. 
I " " " " New England rum and loaf, . 9 

Carter & Glossbrenner's History of York County, York, 1834. 



A Bed Rose from the Olden Time. 31 

(since 1742 attached to the Moravians), became an 
inmate of The Rose, prior to taking charge of a 
store which was in course of erection a few rods 
south from the inn on the Minisink road. On the 
completion of this place of traffic the hostejry as- 
sumed the character of a mart ; but especially in the 
interval between 1765 and 1772, when the Moravian 
Indians from Wyalusing (Bradford county), and 
others from places as remote as Sheshequin, 
Shamunk and Owege, came to the store to barter 
skins and wooden ware for strouds and half-thicks, 
and powder and lead. Mr. Edmonds relinquished 
his position at The Rose in 1772 — was appointed 
shop-keeper in the village of Nazareth, and deceased 
there in September of 1786. 

Several allusions having been made in the course 
of this narrative to the Rose-farm, it may be well 
to dispossess the reader of any erroneous precon- 
ception in reference to its extent. It was never 
more than a small glebe, with sufficiency of arable 
land and meadow to supply the house with bread 
and a few cows with pasture. Would any one, 
however, be fully informed in respect to the details 
of its agricultural department, he may consult the 
annual assessments of the inn for County and 
Province taxes still extant, or the following inven- 
tory. This affiDrds us also a glance into the very 
penetralia of the goodly house. 



32 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 



INVENTORY OF THE STOCK IN THE ROSE INN. 
31st May, 1764, amounting to 64 £ 15 s. yd. 



20 bu. of rye, . 

15 bu, of oats, . 

2 bu. of buckwheat, 

150 lbs. of pork, . 

10 lbs. of butter, 

15 lbs. of tallow, . 

6 lbs. of lard, . 

32 galls, of soft soap, 

10 lbs. of cheese, , 



@ 



£■ 
I 

I 

3 15 — 



15 

10 

3 

5 
8 

3 
I 

7 



2 hogsheads of cider, . 


@ 


30 




3 








10 galls, of TeneriiFe,* 


@ 


5 


6 


2 


15 


— 


28 galls. Barbadoes Rum, 


@ 


4 


I 


5 


H 


4 


23 galls, of New Eng- 














land Rum, . . 


@ 


3 




3 


9 


— 


15 galls, of metheglin, . 


@ 
@ 


I 
3 






15 


— 


17 yds. linen of flax, . 


2 


II 


— 


10 yds. linen of tow, . 


@ 


I 


8 




16 


8 


23- yds. of cloth. 


@ 


3 


6 




9 


Ih 


Yarn, 










2 


6 















I. 



15 13 



3 19 92 



* Philip C. Bader, (who deceased at Nazareth in March of 1797) 
in a rhythmical narrative descriptive of the incidents of his voyage to 
America in the autumn of 1751, sings at large of the peak of 
Teyde on Tenerifte, irt the shadow of whose cone ripened the 
generous wine that was quaffed at The Rose. 



A Bed Rose from the Olden Time. 33 

;£ S. d. £ s. d. 

J load of hay, ig — 

3 cows, @ ^4 los. 13 xo — 

2 calves, . . . . @ los. i — — 

2 hogs, I 

16 q 



£ s. d. 

J lb of powder, I 6 

I iron kettle received for a debt, . , i 26 

Sundry small outstanding debts, . ... 11 2 7 

Cash on hand, 4 8 — 



16 14 



;£ s. 

2 acres sowed in oats^ . @ 12s. i 4 

4 bu. of oats sowed in, @ 2s. 8 

\ acre sowed in flax, ...... 5 

i bu. of flax seed, I 

i acre of Indian corn, 12 



10 



64 15 7 



The 4th of April, 1765, was perhaps the most 
memorable day in the incumbency of Ephraim 
Culver at the inn. In the forenoon of that day 
the precincts of the house were suddenly thronged 
by a motley crowd of Indians, — men, women, and 
children, whose appearance and equipments indicated 
them to be a people migrating in search of new 
homes. They were the Moravian Indians, lately 
returned from confinement in the Barracks at Phila- 
delphia, — en route for Wyalusing. Thus far they 



S4 «^ •^'^f^ Rose fvoiiv the Olden Time. 

had journeyed under escort, and protected by the 
strong arm of the law ; and here they took sad 
leave of the people among whom their lot had been 
cast for upwards of twenty years. 

Two weeks after this event, Mr. Culver retired 
from The Rose, having accepted the appointment of 
landlord at The Crown, for a second time. This 
he managed until the decease of his wife in 1771. In 
April of 1772, he became a resident of Schoeneck, 
and soon after married Mary C. Claus. Mr. Culver 
deceased at Bethlehem in March of 1775. 

John and Mary Catharine Lischer were installed 
at The Rose on the 20th of April 1765, and ad- 
ministered its concerns until the 30th of March 
1772. Mr. Lischer was the last in the succession 
of its landlords. With his retirement on the 30th 
of March 1772, it ceased to be an inn; for in 
1 77 1 the house and its adjacents, (which at that 
time embraced a tract of two hundred and forty 
acres, touching the head-line of the Barony and 
situate in Plainfield township,) were sold by the 
Moravian Society to Dorst Alleman, — a native of the 
Canton of Berne, Switzerland, but prior to 1761 an 
inhabitant of Lancaster County, yeoman, — and con- 
firmed to him by indenture bearing date of 17th 
October, 1783. 

It was Alleman, therefore, who plucked the rose 
from the old ancestral tree. 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 35 

He and Verona his wife, took possession on the 
I St of April, 1772. Yet even in its decadence the 
goodly house was honored ; for in September 
of 1772, Governor John Penn, son of Richard 
Penn, son of William Penn by Hannah Callowhill, 
passed a week under its hospitable roof, while re- 
laxing from the cares of state in shooting grouse 
on the neighboring barrens. Mr. Watson tells us 
that the Governor " was in person of the middle 
size, reserved in manners and very near sighted ;" 
whence it is inferable that the slaughter of grouse, as 
far as he was individually concerned, was only moder- 
ate ; nevertheless, his Honor, being an English gen- 
tleman of the old school, may have relished the sport 
and have been benefited, too, by the country air and 
country living. 

Dorst Alleman deceased at his mansion, late The 
Rose, in March of 1803. 

Benedict Benade* of Plainfield township, painter 
and potter, sole executor of the last will and tes- 
tament of Dorst Alleman, confirmed the Rose tract to 
Mattes Alleman, of the aforesaid township, yeoman, 
only son and residuary legatee of the aforesaid 
Dorst, by indenture bearing date of 28th December 



■^Benedict Benade, horn in Upper Lusatia in September of 1752, im- 
migrated in 1793 — married Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Dorst Al- 
leman, and deceased in Filetown in 1841. 

6 



36 A Bed Hose from the Olden Thne. 

1803: Mattes Alleman deceased in December of 
1819. His executors, Molly Alleman and John A. 
Edmonds,* some time after, exposing seventy-eight 
acres of the original tract (including The Rose) 
for sale at vendue or public outcry, these were 
purchased by George Gold, of Bushkill township, 
yeoman, for thirteen hundred and twelve dollars and 
sixty-seven cents, and confirmed to him by inden- 
ture bearing date of 17th April, 1826. 

George Gold and Rosina his wife, conveyed the 
premises to David Gold, of Bushkill township, yeo- 
man, in February of 1831. By David Gold and 
Mary his wife, they were conveyed to Gideon 
Haupt, of Bushkill township, yeoman, in April of 
1840. 

Mrs. Louisa Reinheimer, a daughter of Gideon 
Haupt, the present holder, came into possession of 
the property in April of 1865. 

In conclusion, we would state, that in the sum- 
mer of 1858 the olden hostelry was demolished; 
but the gables of the tenant-house which stands on 
its site, are covered with boards that survived the 
wreck; — sole remaining, but alas! withered leaves shed 
from the Red Rose that once bloomed on the 
Barony of Nazareth. 



* A son of William Edmonds. Born on Long Island in May of 
1743, deceased in Plalnfield township in April of 1824. 



A Bed Rose from the Olden Time. 37 



Our personal recollections of the historic house 
extend over the period of time usually allotted to 
two generations of mortal men. in that long in- 
terval it suffered no perceptible change. It failed 
even to g-row older. From first to last it was the 
same tall, spectral-looking mansion, clad in a coat 
of faded Spanish brown ; — standing no longer on 
the great highway between the capital of a Prov- 
ince and its frontiers, but on a by-way in a secluded 
and forsaken corner of what v/as once part of the 
Barony of Nazareth. Its barns were rickety, its 
cider-press was ancient, its fruit-trees were mossy ; 
and yet from first to last they suffered no percepti- 
ble change — they failed to grow older. In men's 
minds the house was vaguely associated with a long- 
past Indian age. They spoke of its having been 
beleaguered, and pointed to the knot-holes in the 
shrunken weather-boarding as the work of balls from 
savage rifles. They spoke of its precincts as having 
been the homes of successive generations of red men, 
and testified to their presence with arrow-heads and 
tomahawks of stone, gleaned from the neighboring 
fields. And there were even some who stated that 
the old Red Rose had been planted on haunted 
ground ; and down to the year of its demolition, 
there might be heard in the time of the Septem- 
ber moon, as soon as its beams began to silver 
the veil of mist that hangs nightly over the milk- 



38 A Red Rose froTtv the Olden Time. 

house In the meadow, the voice of a horseman on 
the upland, chiding his loitering steed in an unknown 
tongue ; — it being the spirit of the bold Minsi from 
Peoqueahlin, carrying off the stolen daughter of Tagh- 
tapasset, the Delaware king of Welagamika.* 
Here end the chronicles of The Rose. 



* The name of the Indian town that stood on the^ Barony of Naza- 
reth, on its first occupation by the Moravians, in the spring of 1740. 
There is a draft in the room of the Moravian Historical Society, en- 
titled " A Draft of Nazareth and adjacent lands," drawn in March of 
1757, on which the site of the old Indian town is marked on the 
south side of the run irrigating the meadows that lie north by east 
•from the " Whitefield House," — perhaps thirty rods east from the "old 
Minisink road." The word Welagamika is compounded from <zvhe-lik, 
and ha-ga-mi-ka, words in the Unami Delaware, signifying, the best of 
tillable land. 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 39 



The Old Inn at Nazareth. 

1771- 

The house in which we are met on this memorial 
day, comes to us from that period in the history 
of the Moravians, in which they began to assimilate 
with the other elements of the population that had 
taken root in the Prgvince, and that were crowding 
them in their exclusive settlements. The Economy 
at Nazareth was dissolved in 1764. This led to 
many changes ; the most important of which were 
the concentration of their people on fewer farms, 
and the subsequent founding of the village, now the 
borough, of Nazareth. This was laid out on a parcel 
of six hundred acres of land, situate between what 
was henceforth called Old Nazareth (its gigantic 
tile-roofed barn stands to the present day)^ — and 
Nazareth Hall, in January of 1771. The first dwell- 
ing was completed before the close of that year. 
But a village without an inn, it was argued, would 
be Hamlet without the ghost, and ill equipped for 
the struggle for existence, and hence preparations 
were made in due time for the erection of the in- 
dispensable appendage. These were so far completed 
as to admit of the first layer of welUhewn hickory 



Jl,0 A Reel Rose from the Olden Time. 



logs being put down, on the 5th day of August of 
the last mentioned year. Day by day the work of 
blocking-up progressed under the hands of the 
young men from the Economy at Christian's 
Spring;* the house was brought under roof, and 
during the winter of 1771 and 1772, the details of 
its interior were developed in accordance with the 
architect's design. In the spring of the last men- 
tioned year it was occupied. But before passing 
on to a review of the administration of its affairs, 
we would submit the followino- statement of the cost 
at which the hostelry was erected. It is dated 31st 
January, 1772, and reads thus : 

£. s. d. 

I. For work done by the Economy at Christian's 

Spring, amounting to, . . . . . . 136 2 il 

II. For work done by, and board provided for 

workmen, from elsewhere, amounting to, . . 209 11 10 

For bricks &c., . . . . . . . 124 3 6 



Total, 469 18 3 

The public house at Nazareth, erected and com- 
pleted at this outlay of pounds, shillings and pence, 
Pennsylvania currency, is described by a contempo- 
rary writer as having been " a rather murky-looking 



"^This Economy dated back to December of 1749, It was dissolved 
in 1796. 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. Jj.1 

tenement;" but in course of time it was improved, 
enlarged, and ultimately renovated. In fact it passed 
through all the phases incident to inns that revolve 
acceptably around the patronage and favor of a fickle 
but discriminating public. 

On the 30th of March, 1772, John Lischer, a 
native of Hilzhof, margraviate of Wittgenstein, 
farmer, and Mary Catharine, m. n. Loesch, a 
daughter of George Loesch of Tulpehocken, his 
wife, were installed at the inn, in the capacity of 
landlord and landlady. Mr. Lischer had immigra- 
ted early in life, and settled in Oley. From there 
he removed to Bethlehem in 1743. In October of 
1753, he accompanied a colony of young men, sent 
thence to make a settlement on the newly purchased 
" Moravian tract," in western North Carolina. We 
next find him discharging the duties of an express- 
rider between Bethlehem and that distant point. 
One October morning in 1758, while Mr. Lischer 
and a comrade were returning from Philadelphia, 
whither they had been to market, they and their 
team were impressed in the Province service ; and 
so , it came to pass that before the close of a week, 
he had loaded up salt, and was en route for Rays- 
town (Bedford), where Genl. Forbes was collecting a 
formidable force for the expulsion of the French 
from the country of the Ohio. Mr. Lischer married 
in 1759. -^^ 1762, he was appointed landlord at 



Jj.^ A lied Rose from the Olden Time. 

The Crown, and subsequently, as has been stated, 
at The Rose. His wife was yet in her 'teens, 
when far into the night of the 29th of May, 1745, 
she assisted her mother in Tulpehocken in finishing 
a tent for Bishop Spangenberg, who was on the 
morrow to set out for Onondaga. Having been 
reared in the school of Moravian housewifery, she 
was privileged to lay the first stone in that pile 
which has since been growing and which commemo- 
rates the good cheer that has always been dispensed 
at the Nazareth Inn. 

Mr. Lischer deceased in May of 1782, and was 
buried in the beautiful cemetery on the hill, which 
his hands had assisted in adorning. 

John Michael Moehring, born in September of 
1739, at Hirschberg in Voigtland, farmer, impor- 
ted in the good ship Hope, Capt. Christian Jacob- 
sen, in September of 1761, was the second landlord 
of the inn. He succeeded Mr. Lischer in March 
of 1775; but finding the duties of his position too 
onerous for one, he wisely sought a helpmate, and 
choosing Elizabeth Rauschenberger, he was married to 
her on the 30th of April following. 

Two days before that important event in his life, 
an affair of importance in the life of the American 
people had occurred at Lexington. This and its 
long and tedious chain of consequences, link for 
link, afforded motives of conversation at the Naza- 



A Bed Rose from the Olden Time. J^S 

reth Inn (as well as at all other inns) for the re- 
mainder of Mr. Moehring's administration ; and 
when he retired from the house at whose head he 
had stood for nine eventful years, it no longer owed 
allegiance to King George the Third, and the 
Province had become a free and independent State. 

Mr. Moehring deceased at Nazareth in April of 
1796. He left no issue. 

On the 19th of March, 1784, Owen Rice, and Eliza- 
beth, nee Eyerly, his wife, assumed the management 
of the inn. Mr. Rice was a son of the Owen 
Rice who had set out the first orchard on the 
Barony, and was born in the city of New York, in 
August of 1751. During his incumbency the house 
gradually acquired a wide-spread reputation, as on the 
3d of October, 1785, a boarding-school for young 
gentlemen was commenced in Nazareth Hall; and 
in the inn its visiting patrons found a temporary 
home. 

Mr. Rice deceased at Bethlehem, in August of 
1820. 

The fourth landlord in the succession was John 
Kremser, a native of Nazareth, but at the time of 
his appointment, a member of the Economy at 
Christian's Spring. Having married Ann Mary 
Peischer in March of 1790, he thereupon under- 
took the control of the house, and remained its re- 
sponsible head for upwards of ten years. But in 



Jfjf A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 

that interval he lost his wife. He next married 
Ann Sybilla Beck, in February of 1793. Mr. 
Kremser deceased at Bethlehem, in November of 
1823. 

John Lewis Roth, Mr. Kremser's successor, con- 
ducted the affairs of the inn, in the interval be- 
tween October of 1800, and October of 1808. Mr. 
Roth was the first child of white parents born 
within the borders of the state of Ohio, he seeing 
the light of day on the 4th of July, 1773, at the 
Gnadenhutten mission, on the Tuscarawas branch of 
the Muskingum. In 1785 he was a pupil at Nazareth 
Hall. His subsequent career is partially obscure; 
but he was a resident of the Moravian settlement 
at Hope, Warren County, New Jersey, when he 
was tendered the position of landlord at Nazareth. 
Mr. Roth deceased at Bath, Northampton County, 
Pa., in September of 1841. 

On the 27th October, 1808, Joseph Rice, a son 
of the third landlord, and Ann Salome, a daughter 
of the missionary John Heckewelder, his wife, were 
installed at the inn. They conducted its concerns 
for upwards of two years. Mr. Rice deceased at 
Bethlehem, in 1827. 

John S. Haman and Sarah, m. n. Schmick, his 
wife, were host and hostess at our inn, between 
June of 181 1, and March of 1836, presiding over 
its fortunes, therefore, for almost a quarter of a 



A Bed Rose from the Olden Tvn%e. 4^ 



century. Hence Mr. Haman was the landlord par 
excellence of the Nazareth Inn. He deceased at 
that place in February of 1866, in the seventy- 
ninth year of his age. 

The landlords of this house up to 1836, without 
exception, were members of the Moravian Church. 
During the ensuing sixteen years, however, it was 
let to gentlemen who were not members of that 
Society, and in 1835, it was sold to Peter Best. 

William Craig was landlord between April of 
1836 and April of 1842. Him followed Daniel 
Riegel, who resigned in favor of Peter Best, in 
April of 1852. Best, as has been stated, bought 
the house. Between 1854 and 1868, Edward Sieg- 
fried, Henry Whitesell, Richard Whitesell, Garnet 
and Leidy, and George Hager, followed in rapid 
succession. And finally, in the last mentioned year, 
the old Nazareth Inn was taken by Jesse Billheimer, 
the present popular incumbent. 



46 j1 Red Rose from the Olden Time. 



APPENDIX. 

Containing notices supplementary to the preceding historical sketch. 



I. 



Francis and George Clevel. Francis, the older of the two brothers, 
was born 27th September, 1720, at Auerbach, in Baden Durlach. 
While on shipboard he was redeemed by a German farmer, on whose 
plantation in Oley, Berks county, he passed his servitude. Having 
married Salome Kichline in 1746, he disposed of his cabin set in 
among the Oley Hills, and with his wife and infant daughter, Magda- 
lene, removed to the wilds of Northampton county, locating on the 
Lehietan, or Hakijannecke, about two miles north from Nazareth. The 
site of his house is pointed out about one mile southeast from the 
Douglass Slate Quarry, in Bushkill township. Here he deceased 24th 
January, 1798. Three sons, John, Francis, and Nathaniel, twenty- 
eight grand-children and one great-grand-child survived the venerable 
patriarch. 

George, his brother, was born i8th November, 1726, at Auerbach, 
and deceased at Schoeneck, 6th May, 1793. He was the father of 
nine sons and three daughters. Daniel, one of the nine, and father of 
the aged Mr. Philip Clevel of Schoeneck, was born in the Whitefield 
House, in February of 1756, while his parents were refugees at 
Nazareth. 

The Moravian ministers settled at that place, preached statedly in 
Francis Clevel's house, on the Bushkill, in the interval between the 



A Red Rose from the Olden Time. 47 

spring of 1755 and the autumn of 1762. Subsequently, the Clevels 
attended divine worship in the chapel at Schceneck, and united with 
the Moravians. That quaint old building, high-roofed and girt with 
low porches, which hangs on the declivity of the hill as you go down 
to the Bushkill on your way to Bushkill Center, popularly called '* Das 
Schweitzer Haus," was built by Francis Clevel, Jr., circa 1776. 



II. 



Ann Margaret, wife of Albrecht Klotz, deceased at Nazareth in June 
of 1758. Lewis, h.h brother, was attached to the Moravians as early 
as 1745, and was then a resident of Macungy, his farm lying adjacent 
to the Moravian property in Salisbury township. Subsequently, and 
for many years, Lewis Klotz was a Justice of the Peace in Northamp- 
ton county. His children were placed at Moravian schools. Jasper 
Payne, in 1742 enrolled in the Moravian Society in London, as 
cheesemonger and wine-cooper, corner of Queen street and Watling 
street, St, Antholines, — but, in 1746, accountant for the "Bethlehem 
Economy," has left the following items on record. " August I i«th, 
1746, Lewis Klotz's child died at Herzer's last Tuesday was seven- 
night, being the 5th of August." And, "May 24th, 1747, Received 
of Lewis Klotz towards paying of his children's board and schooling : 

£. s. d. 
3 Cows, . . . . . 9 — ^- 

■2. Calves, . . . . . — 10 — 

1 Mare and a little colt with a bell 

on the mare . . . . 7 — — 

I Cow-bell . . I . . — 5 — 

16 15 — 



48 A Red Rose from the Olden Ttine. 



III. 

Gottlieb Demuth was born in 1715, in Radelsdorf in Bohemia, 
whence he and others of his family emigrated to Saxony and became 
attached to the Moravians at Herrnhut. In 1736 he was sent with 
a colony to Georgia. In June of 1737 he came to Pennsylvania, 
settled first among the Metuchen Hills, and next at Bethlehem. He 
deceased at Schoeneck in October of 1776. His house stood a short 
quarter of a mile south of The Rose, on the Minisink road. 

IV. 

The Volcks. The ancestor of the Volcks, whose family-tree, prior 
to 1750, overshadowed a goodly portion of Allemsngel, now- Lynn 
township, Lehigh county, was Andries Volck, born near Worms in 
1678. He and Ann Catharine his wife, and sons and daughters, be- 
longed to a company of fifty-two German Protestants, whom, with 
their minister, one Joshua Kocherthal, Queen Anne was graciously 
pleased to send to New York and settle at her own expense, in the 
autumn of 1708. They pitched their tents first on Quassek creek 
(now Chambers' creek, near Newburg), in the Highlands, at a spot 
called by the Dutch " De Dans-Kammer. " Thence the Volcks re- 
moved to Allemaengel, circa 1735. Old Andries deceased there in 
September of 1747, the father of eleven children, of whom, Andrew, 
Charles, Jacob and George, the surviving sons, in due course of time, 
became the heads of prosperous families, 

V. 

Philip C. Bader. The cittern with which Mr. Bader (as he tells us 
in his miniature epic), was wont to beguile the tedious hours of long 
weeks at sea, may be seen in the collection of relics belonging to the 
Moravian Historical Society. From the father the sounding shell 



A Bed Rose from the Olden Time. 



49 



passed into the hands of the daughter — the same Julia Bader who, 
while an inmate of the Single Sisters' House at Bethlehem, assisted in 
embroidering a banner for Pulaski^ at the time the General was recruit- 
ing his immortal legion in Northampton and Berks. 

VI. 

Specified account of the expenses incurred in erecting the 
Nazareth Inn, in 1771. 

I. For work done by the Economy at Christian's Spring — viz. : 

£ s. d. 



For 509 days' carpentering, felling and squaring timber, blocking 



up, laying floors, &c., @ 2S. 6d., 

" 57 days' board for the carpenters, (c 

" 452 breakfasts and suppers, @ yd., 

" hauling stone and timber, 

" hauling 44 logs to the saw-mill, 

" sawing, ...... 



IS. per day, 



12 

3 

4 



63 

2 

13 

26 
1 1 
19 5 S 

136 2 u 

2. For work done by, and for board provided for workmen from else- 



where. 


VIZ. : 






£ 


s. 


d. 


For digging cellar, . . . . 








5 


2 


6 


" quarrying stone, . 








12 


13 


5 


" hauling stone, 








9 


9 


— 


" hauling stone and timber. 








20 


18 


2 


" mason-work. 








46 


12 


— 


" carpentering and blocking up. 








II 


14 


— 


" hod-carriers and day-laborers, 








30 


— 


— 


" carpenters' fine work, . 








32 


4 


4J 


" blacksmiths' work. 








5 


12 


5 


" board and whiskey, 








35 


5 


62^ 



109 



50 



A Red Rose fram the Olden Time. 



£> 


s. 


d. 


For 17, 150 bricks, @. 30s. per m., 25 


14 


6 


" 8,807 feet of pine boards. 










28 


2 


6 


" a boxes of glass, . 










8 


I 





" 2 iron stoves, 










7 


4 





" work done at the stoves. 










7 


14 


5 


" 15 locks, .... 










4 


5 


3 


" hair for mortar. 













II 


6 


" clapboards, .... 













19 


3 


" shovels, hoes, &c., 










9 


10 





" logs from the vt^oods, 










12 


3 


__ 


" nails, ..... 










19 


6 


I 


" plank for stairway, 













2 






469 18 



'ViTft.*^' 




